


The Year of Living Safely

by stele3



Category: Bandom, MCR - Fandom
Genre: Alcoholism, Brothers, Gen, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-sobriety MCR. This is as much about me and my own brother as it is about the Way boys, and Christ was it hard to write; it brought a lot of painful things to the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Year of Living Safely

When Gerard decides to get clean, Mikey tapes little cheat-sheets of hotline numbers to his bunk, his pillow, his notebook of sketches. At first Gerard feels shitty enough about being a drunk asshole for months (fuck, years) that he doesn't say anything; but after a while the guilt fades, and Mikey's still doing it.  
  
Gerard finally snaps, calls him a douche; they scream at each other a little, pent-up shit bouncing off the edge of their mouths, and Mikey stomps out of the house with all the force of a 130-pound featherweight.  
  
Gerard sits on the couch and tears up all the little lists into tiny squares, then tinier squares. He eats a few of them while Leno comes on. Fuck. He hates Leno.  
  
At the last commercial, he breaks down, calls Frank. "Hey."  
  
"Hey." Frank's voice is sleep-rough. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Why would something be wrong? Maybe I just want to give you freaky dreams."  
  
"There'd better fucking be something wrong. If you're waking me up just to talk, I'm gonna fly to New Jersey and beat your ass."  
  
Gerard pulls his knees up and digs his heels into the couch, picking at a toenail. "Um. Mikey and I had a fight."  
  
A pause, and then Frank sounds a little more awake. "Any casualties?"  
  
Gerard glances down at the tiny white pieces of paper that cover his sweatpants. "Naw, we're okay. But, um, can you call Mikey? He kinda… walked out."  
  
"Fuuuuck," Frank groans, and Gerard can hear the rustle of clothing as he moves. "What time is it there?"  
  
"Like," Gerard checks around, then realizes Conan is coming on. "1 am, maybe? Wait, what the fuck are you doing asleep, anyway?"  
  
"Fuck you, Gee," Frank coughs, "I'm still on Japan time."  
  
Gerard closes his eyes. Fucking Japan. "Look, can you just, like, call Mikey? I don't think he wants to talk to me right now."  
  
"Yeah," Frank says. "Sure."  
  
"Thanks," Gerard whispers, his throat closing out of nowhere. "Bye."  
  
He hangs up before he can make more of an ass out of himself. Tremors make his fingers clumsy, and it takes a good thirty seconds to pick off all the little paper shreds.  
  
The rest of Conan passes in a blur. Gerard sits there thinking about Gran and this house, about how he wasn't there when she died, then wipes his nose on his shirt and drags himself into the kitchen to clean some dishes. The dishwasher's broken; he scrubs at the plates with a bright green sponge, pausing every now and then to swipe at his nose with a wrist. The sponge smells like mildew.  
  
It's 6 am before Mike comes back. Gerard blinks awake and creaks his head up from the table to find his brother in the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets. "Hey," he croaks. "You okay?"  
  
"Whatever," Mike says. His eyes are red, glassy. "'M goin' t'bed."  
  
"Okay."  
  
Mike thumps down the hallway to his room, shuts the door quietly; Gerard goes back to the couch and falls asleep. He dreams that they're on the road again, except the house is their tour bus, on wheels and shit. The scorpion on the side of Frank's neck is trying to kill Frank, and they have to get it off his skin. Ray knows a guy that can help but Mikey's at the wheel and he keeps fucking up the gears, backing up when they should be going forward. It's awful in a frantic, frustrated-screaming kinda way.  
  
Gerard wakes up sweating in the hot morning, his bladder ready to pop. He's got a new voicemail.  
  
"Hey," Frank says, "you guys should really get outta that house. I'm serious. Come to LA, we'll get Indian food or something."  
  
Mike's in the bathroom brushing his teeth, but Gerard can still smell alcohol-scented vomit in the air. It makes him queasy. "Hey, you wanna go to LA? Frank invited us to his place." Which, he hadn't, really, but where the hell else were they going to stay?  
  
Mike takes the toothbrush out of his mouth and speaks thickly around a mouthful of white foam. "Yeah, hu thaid tho latht night."  
  
Gerard pokes at his side. "You look like somebody came in your mouth."  
  
Mikey scowls and flips him off.  
  
-o-  
  
Frank meets them at the airport, stinking like garlic. "Holy shit," Gerard coughs, even as he clings to Frankie's shoulders. "You smell."  
  
"Leftover Italian," Frank says, and huffs a thick breath right into Gerard's face.  
  
When he hugs Mikey, Frank cups the back of his head, rubbing gently. Gerard watches and feels a little bubble expand inside him, like his stomach's turned into a balloon.  
  
They drive into the city. Frank digs through his glove box and comes up with two extra pair of sunglasses, hands them out. "You guys look like fucking vampires, Jesus."  
  
"At least you're safe, garlic-breath," Gerard jokes weakly. Frank rolls his eyes.   
  
The sun beats down, dazzling and smoking his brain. Mike's a silent presence in the back; when Gerard glances back to check, he's got his headphones on and is staring out the window.  
  
Jamia's cousin owns a house at the top of Mt. Washington; she and Frank stay there whenever they're in town, renting out the guest apartment in back. It's a fucking trip to get to, switchbacks and goat trails; Frank's car engine whirrs loudly and there aren't any guard rails.  
  
The view is worth it, at least. "Fucking ridiculous," Gerard says, craning his neck to look past Frank at the city below them. "Wow."  
  
"I know, right?" Frank grins, taps his cigarette on the window edge. "You okay, Mike?"  
  
Mikey looks even paler than usual. "Yeah," he answers tightly. He gets carsick.  
  
Jamia's waiting for them in the street, barefoot and flagging them down into an empty parking space like a tiny air-traffic controller; when Frank pulls up she leans down into Gerard's window. "Heya, Wayboys. You hungry?"  
  
The scent of garlic wafts in the mountain air.  
  
-o-  
  
It takes two days for Mike to get past his anger, and then he goes right back to trying to hold everything together and be strong for Gerard or the band or the fans or whoever. Half the time, Gerard wants to give him a Best Little Brother of the Year award; they spend the other half snarling at close quarters in the kitchen.  
  
Frank drives him to a church on Figueroa for his first meeting and sits outside with him for ten minutes.  
  
"I really don't want to go in there," Gerard says, staring at the dashboard.  
  
Frank doesn't chide, doesn't argue or tell him that it'll all be okay. "You'll be pissed at yourself if you don't, Gee."  
  
"I going to. I am. I just – I'm stating for the fucking record, okay, that I really don't want to go in there."  
  
Frank rolls his eyes, but smiles. "Okay. Duly noted."  
  
It's not that bad, actually. Nobody recognizes him – Gerard had been terrified about that, getting recognized and having to be there for some excited fan just while he's ass-deep in his own nightmares.  
  
When Frank picks him up, Mikey's waiting to strike. "How'd it go?"  
  
"Mikey, chill. It was fine." Gerard sits on the leather sofa, sinking into its soft clinging surface. He feels relaxed, deflated, for the first time in fucking years. There's a plan: if he follows the list, he'll be okay. It's so much better than just him on his own flailing around for a handhold, or Brian talking him through a nervous breakdown.  
  
"What did you say?"  
  
"Um," Gerard rubs his forehead, "stuff. I actually didn't do much talking, just listened to the rest of them. Y'know, get the lay of the land first."  
  
Mikey nods. "Anybody recognize you?"  
  
"I dunno – don't think so. Nobody ran up and started humping my leg or anything." He grins, but Mikey doesn't so much as crack a smirk.  
  
"That's good," Mikey says, like he understands, like he gets it. That irritates Gerard, for no reason he can identify.  
  
"Yeah, anyway." He gets up, then sprints from the couch to the hallway and slides into the kitchen; they've got hardwood floors and he and Frank have been surfing across it nonstop. "What's for dinner?" he asks Jamia.  
  
She puts the knife down and glares at him. "I am not your fucking maid, Gerard Way. I'm making food for myself."  
  
"You make food for Frank."  
  
"Frank makes me come." She picks the knife back up, points it at him. "Don't even try."  
  
"I didn't – "  
  
"You were thinking it."  
  
Gerard run-slides down the hallway to the open bathroom doorway. "Frank, if I give you an orgasm, will you make me food?"  
  
Frank's got shaving cream smeared over his face; he has a meeting for Skeleton Crew in the Valley. "You're happy."  
  
Gerard grins. He is. He feels like a weight's been lifted off him: there's a plan, a list to follow. "Give me food, Frank!" He grabs Frank's T-shirt and throws a leg around his hips.  
  
"Fucking – down, boy! Bad dog!" Frank smacks him on the head, staggering and laughing. "Jamia! Gee's humping me!"  
  
"That's nice, honey," Jamia calls back.  
  
"She's seen you guys perform," Mikey calls. "That, like, has lost all meaning."  
  
"Gee, seriously." Frank wriggles free. "I gotta haul ass to this meeting." A grin peeks through the shaving cream, though.  
  
It's like everything in the universe has converged and, overnight, decided to be fucking awesome. Gerard skies his way back into the kitchen, where he discovers Jamia doling out cheese ravioli to Mikey. "Lying wench."  
  
She sticks her tongue out, unrepentant. "He does the laundry."  
  
"Yeah," Mikey says, smugly grating parmesan, the little fucker. "So there."  
  
-o-  
  
This new buoyancy lasts a week. There are trees – actual trees – up on the mountain, and it's beautiful enough to make Gerard want to spend some time outside.  
  
He tries going for a jog one morning and barely gets half a mile. "Shit," he pants, shuffling home.  
  
Mikey's sitting at the kitchen table when he comes back in, hair askew and sticky with residual hair products. "What're you doing?"  
  
"Jogging. Trying to."  
  
Mikey just stares at him for a second, then cracks up. Gerard punches his arm. "Shut up, dickhead."  
  
"Frank! Frank!" Mikey hollers.  
  
Frank pads in, wearing a pair of long-johns. "You motherfuckers - what?"  
  
"Gee tried to go for a jog," Mikey says.  
  
Frank's lips quirk and he raises his eyebrows at Gerard.  
  
"Oh, fuck you both," Gerard snaps and goes down the hall to the bathroom to peel off his sweaty clothes.  
  
Mostly he sits around with Frank watching TV – Gerard nearly splooges over the 250 channels – and helping out in the kitchen to earn his keep with Jamia. Mikey's in and out, making his LA rounds. "He's like some kind of… social butterfly, I swear," Gerard complains, pounding on the bathroom door. "I gotta go, Mikey!"  
  
Mikey yanks the door open and squirts a tube of gel onto Gerard's shirt.  
  
In the evenings, whoever's in the house usually goes out to watch the sunset. Jamia and Frank have a couple of lawn chairs set up; Jamia sits in Frank's lap and he wraps his arms around her, complicated tangle of hands and limbs. In the dim light it's hard to tell whose arm belongs to who. If Mikey's around, he'll invariably sit in Gerard's lap with disastrous results: Gerard tries and tries, shifting his weight around underneath his brother's boney ass, but they always tip over onto the soft dirt.  
  
They buy squirt guns and have water-fights in the summer heat; Frank joins in, shifting alliances between the brothers while Jamia looks on loftily, sipping her iced tea.  
  
Meetings at the church are low-key, quiet; Gerard goes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, as much as he can pack in to the teensy-weensy little window of time that he's got. He still doesn't do much talking beyond the clichéd "Hi-my-name-is-Gerard" line. It feels kind of comforting to say and hear and repeat, different names overlaid on each other.  
  
There's this old black lady named Lola who curses like a sailor and shows them her father's ornate hip flask. She calls him "honey," when they're getting donuts from the narrow table and Gerard falls in love with her instantly, adores her dry crackle of a voice and her prune face.  
  
He tries writing something about her and her dad, but it comes out too sentimental, something Lola would probably laugh at. He goes to sleep unsettled, curled up on the couch with the window open above his head to mask the smell of his cigarette smoke; Jamia's trying to get Frank to quit, worried about lung cancer and asthma and, Gerard suspects, thinking ahead to a hypothetical time when they'll have kids.  
  
In the morning, Frank's reading the pages over a cup of coffee and a surreptitious cigarette of his own. "Hey, man."  
  
Gerard pauses in the doorway. "Hey."  
  
Frank doesn't say anything else for a while, his chin propped in one cupped hand and his eyes moving across the lines. Gerard fiddles around the kitchen, toasts a bagel. Frank's hair has grown out, curling around his ears.  
  
Finally Frank sits back and twists his smoke out into the crumbs of his plate. "You still thinking about your grandma?"  
  
It's an instant rush of happiness and gratitude, unstoppable, more potent than any drug; Gerard smiles, shaky with it. "Yeah. Um. I guess so." He gestures at the pages. "Apparently."  
  
"But in a good way."  
  
"Yeah." The bagel pops up. He takes it over to sit across from Frank. A big tub of butter sits at Frank's elbow and Gerard swipes his bagel through the yellow substance. "It's not, I'm not going to show this to anyone – present company excluded – it just. It feels like I can talk about her now, instead of – " He hesitates and gestures with the bagel, suddenly pained.  
  
Frank darts forward and takes a bite out of it, right from Gerard's fingers. His teeth catch a fingertip and Gerard yelps. "Hey!"  
  
"Sorry," Frank says, his cheek bulging. "Didn't mean t'getcha."  
  
The bite didn't break skin, but Gerard plays it up anyway, shoving the finger into his mouth; he's being distracted, but it feels okay. It all feels okay, just being himself and existing in this slightly surreal, elevated world.  
  
-o-  
  
After a week, they descend onto thin ice. Brian's already canceled a bunch of performances and Matt's fucking gone. Gerard kind of wants to hate Bob on general principle, out of loyalty, because no matter how bad Matt was fucking up, Christ, they started the band together, him and Gerard.  
  
They only have two fucking days before the shoot: they claw through every riff, unraveling and stitching things back together. It's a fucking battlefield. Bob keeps up more than anyone expects him to, and after the first day is over there's a silent, collective sigh of relief.  
  
"Pizza," Mikey says.  
  
"Yes," Ray declares gravely. "There shall be pizza. Follow the man with the hair." He leads them down to the pizzeria across the street, the five of them shuffling over the yellow center line like some half-hearted homage to the Beatles. Or maybe Reservoir Dogs, minus the cool suits.  
  
Bob falls into step beside Gerard and waves a packet of cigarettes. "Thanks," Gerard mumbles, dragging one out and fitting it between his lips. He has to stop a moment to light it, hand shielding the tiny, delicate flame; Bob waits with him, not impatient or bored, just standing there smoking his own cigarette.  
  
It still makes Gerard nervous as hell. He blurts out, "You did good. Today, I mean." He immediately winces, how it makes him sound so authoritative. As if he's the one to pass judgment on anything: he just spent a year screaming around on-stage, bombed out of his mind, dropping his pants on occasion.  
  
Bob doesn't seem to take offense. "Still need some work," he says.  
  
Gerard nods, says, "I kind of wanted to hate your guts," and promptly cringes again. God, they have a shoot in two days. He wants a drink. "I mean, I totally don't. You're cool – I just wanted to, is all."  
  
Bob quirks his eyebrows. "It's the beard, huh?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"The beard. People say it's evil."  
  
Gerard eyes it. "It's… kinda dodgy-looking, yeah."  
  
"Good." Bob drags on his cigarette, blows a smoke ring. It's cool. "Like to keep people guessing. You and Matt were close, yeah?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Bob nods, shrugs, and jerks his head. "C'mon, man, I'm starving."  
  
"Okay. Thanks for the smoke."  
  
"The beard laced it with cyanide."  
  
-o-  
  
On the day before the set in New York, Mikey attaches himself to Gerard's elbow and barely leaves except when one of them has to pee. Which is pretty often: Gerard was up all night vomiting his nerves out, and Mikey's a sympathy-puker. They've both been chugging water to replenish.  
  
"20 minutes to show," the stage manager shouts down the hallway, and Gerard shivers reflexively. Ray's finding itches to scratch all over his body and looks like the junkie he's not; Bob's off in his own world, what Mikey calls the Bob-Zone; and Frankie – Frankie won't even look in Gerard's direction, pale and surrounded by the bluish-white cloud of his own chainsmoking.  
  
They're all thinking about the same thing, what Gerard made the mistake of admitting the day before in yet another fit of poor thinking: this is the first show he's ever played sober.  
  
The couch shakes with Mikey's leg jitters; Gerard puts a hand on his brother's knee then grabs his hand. "You remember," he whispers, and Mikey leans in until his head bumps against Gerard's. "You remember that first show, when you and me both drank all that beer?"  
  
Mikey giggles a little, nervous, but says, "That's not funny, Gee."  
  
"I didn't mean it to be funny."  
  
"It's gonna be okay," Mikey says firmly. "You'll do great."  
  
"Mikey, that's like saying you've got a big dick. If you've gotta say it, it's probably not true." He cocks a grin at his brother that only shakes a little on the edges.  
  
Mikey rolls his eyes, but smiles back.  
  
They do okay. They do more than okay: things click, technically, that haven't before, or maybe Gerard was too drunk to notice. He's pretty sure it's the former, especially after the show when he comes offstage and sees the flushed, lit-up faces of the guys, his band, and Gerard gets that funny balloon-feeling in his stomach again. In the rush of excitement, he misses the last couple of steps and falls straight into somebody's arms… probably Ray, from the massive quantities of hair sticking to the sweat and makeup on Gerard’s face.  
  
Frank leaps onto Bob, scaling him monkey-like. "You're in the band now, motherfucker!"  
  
"Fuck – get off me, tiny man!"  
  
Ray detaches from Gerard. "Bob, a requirement of being in the band is that Frank gets to molest the hell out of you."  
  
"Close your eyes and think of England." Mikey says, leaning on the wall beyond them. Gerard slides past Ray's back and folds his brother into his arms, feeling his skinny shoulder blades.  
  
"I have a giant dick," Mikey says in his ear.  
  
Gerard rears back in horror, punches Mikey's shoulder. "Aw, shit – Mikey! That is wrong."  
  
-o-  
  
The other guys make a point of not partying. So much. Not partying so much. Ray's the best about it: he'd shrugged and gone along with the drinking, and now he shrugs and parks his butt in front of the computer. He's not a pushover, exactly, just easy to please. When Gerard starts joining him, Ray downloads Worms Armageddon and even lets Gerard spend half an hour customizing his whole team into the Doom Patrol.  
  
It's the hardest for Frank to give up, actually, which surprises Gerard. He'd thought that Bob, after traveling around with The Used for so long, would have built up an ironclad addiction or two. It turns out, though, that he was the designated driver/carrier/hair-holder in that company, and he quickly extends those services in his new environment.  
  
Frank… without Jamia around, he gets notoriously unhinged, a livewire without safe grounding: it's what makes him mesmerizing onstage and a fucking terror the rest of the time. Alcohol's not an escape for him, it's a tranquilizer; giving it up means that he's suddenly in everybody's faces.  
  
Taste of Chaos turns into American Idiot turns into Warped. The prominence of the tours correlate to their album sales, and they get their first headlining gig shortly after going platinum; Ray has graphs to explain it all. Frank mostly goes around squealing, "Platinum, bitches!" and groping everyone.  
  
One morning he jumps Mikey, pinning him against the sink and sticking his tongue in Mikey's ear. "Gross!" Mikey squeals, twisting to get escape from what Bob has dubbed the Jaws of Death: Frank's got a strong grip. "Gee! Gee, help me!"  
  
Gerard pauses in the doorway. "What the hell do you expect me to do?"  
  
"Help me, asshole!"  
  
Gerard sighs and sticks his fingers in Frank's armpits, a super-secret ninja move that Bob hasn't learned – no one's told him yet how ridiculously ticklish Frank is. Frank yelps and releases Mikey. Just as fast, though, the Jaws of Death latch onto Gerard, knocking him backward into the shower curtain; half of it tears from the rings as Gerard scrabbles for purchase. "Shit! Mikey, help!"  
  
Mikey hesitates at the door. "Oh, no," Gerard says, as Frank starts licking his neck, "Michael James Way, get back here – "  
  
Sorry, Mikey mouths, and dodges out to safety.  
  
Gerard groans as they tumble to the floor, and flails out with his legs for purchase. Frank, meanwhile, is giving him a hickey. "Ouch – ow, that hurts, you shit!"  
  
Frank pulls free with a wet noise, his face flushed and grinning. "Aw, you like it."  
  
The tattered shower curtain crinkles loud in Gerard's ear. "Seriously, Frankie… I gotta go meet up with Bert. We've got that cover to work on…"  
  
Frank sighs and hauls himself off. "You work too hard. Get away, it's probably contagious."  
  
Gerard clambers up awkwardly, his limbs in different places than he needs them. "If you haven't caught it from Ray or Bob, you're probably immune."  
  
"True," Frank says, face screwed up in thought. "I should test it. Hey, Bob!"  
  
Gerard shuts the door behind him, splashes water on his face, organizes the mess of his hair to a differently-shaped mess. "Stop it," he tells his reflection sternly. "Stop it."  
  
When he finally comes out, Mikey's at the microwave, heating up coffee. "Hey, do you want a cup? I got that stuff from Peets you like."  
  
"Haven't got time. Where's my jacket?"  
  
Mikey frowns and resettles his glasses on his nose. "It was on the floor, so I put it on your bunk. Hey, um – "  
  
"Mikey, I don't have time to talk, okay?" He can hear Frank back in the bunks giggling like a deranged clown doll. "I'll see you later."  
  
"Okay," Mikey replies.  
  
Gerard thumps outside, jacket-less, muttering, "Shit shit shit," under his breath.  
  
-o-  
  
The Midwest is a desert full of memories as mirages to lead him astray and Gerard's no camel. Fuck, he almost killed himself out here in the flat plains: driving out across them is enough to bring his nerves back in full force. Mikey must be clued into Gerard's brain because he's in one of his moods, too, snapping at everyone and storming out to hang with the Alkaline Trio. Sympathy-puke, sympathy-nerves.  
  
Gerard mainlines coffee, doesn't like the little pinging mental reminders about how caffeine is a minor stimulant, too. Pair it with cigarettes and it almost feels like he’s already fallen off the wagon.  
  
Ray, with his laid-back attitude and homebody ways, is a solid block. They develop a routine that seems casual until it becomes apparent to them both how desperately Gerard depends on it; bemused and a little unnerved, Ray steps into the driver's seat of the Gerard Way Recovery Effort.  
  
"You need to get laid," Ray informs him one night, after Gerard has declared the Worm called Elasti-Girl 'smoking hot.'  
  
Gerard sips his coffee instead of explaining that he's never gotten naked with anyone without some kind of substance involved, either. And yeah, the singing has turned out okay, but – this is getting naked. With somebody else to witness it, and probably (hopefully) participate.  
  
"Yo, Gee, return to us," Ray calls.  
  
"Elasti-Girl was hot," Gerard says.  
  
"Whatever. She does not exist, doesn't apply to the topic at hand. Motherfucker!" he yelps as Gerard calls in a reckless napalm strike. "The point is," he continues, as the stricken worms say their various goodbyes and explode into dancing gravestones, "we've all got somebody to go to outside the band, blow off some steam. Bob chills with The Used, Mikey's got the Alkaline Weirdos, Frank's calls Jamia whenever he's got two seconds and I have Bonita here." He pats his computer. "You need somebody, Gee. Even if it's, you know, a temporary thing."  
  
"Okay, not that I don't appreciate your vaguely creepy interest in my sex life, but I'm on tour, Toro. Where the fuck am I going to pick somebody up – that isn't a groupie," he adds quickly, because the day he's that desperate…  
  
"One of the other bands," Ray says reasonably. "Or their techs, or the touring managers. I mean, there aren't that many chicks around, true, but, you know…" He focuses on the screen. "There are plenty of guys. If you're. Into that sorta thing, too."  
  
Gerard stares at him. "Did you just ask me if I'm bi?"  
  
Ray flushes red, taps the keyboard to select a new weapon. "Um. Maybe. Not that way! Just. I haven't exactly been keeping close tabs on your choice in – look, if I was going to try and hook you up, I should know."  
  
Gerard leans his forehead into one palm. "Um, yeah. Sure. You didn't know that?"  
  
"Nope. I mean, I kinda figured you were, but it coulda been that you just get really friendly when you're drunk. So. Yeah."  
  
After a long pause, Gerard murmurs, "Well, that was awkward."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Can we not talk about this ever again, please?"  
  
"God, I hope not," Ray says, and tosses a Banana Bomb. Gerard groans: he hates Banana Bombs.  
  
The bus door opens and Mikey steps in, breathing loudly in the air conditioning. "It's so fucking hot. Hey."  
  
"Hey," Gerard says. "I'm bi. Did you know that?"  
  
Mikey pauses, propping the fridge door open with one skinny hip. "Of course."  
  
"See?" Gerard says to Ray.  
  
"That doesn't count. You two have a hive mind."  
  
"No we don't," Gerard says.  
  
"Yes we do," Mikey counters. "At least one of your worms is named after a superhero." He taps his chin.  "Either Hellboy or Doom Patrol."  
  
Ray snorts and hides his grin behind a fist. "Shut up," Gerard grumbles.  
  
"Should I ask why?” Mikey shuts the fridge with a nudge from his other hip.  
  
"Ray didn't know. He wants me to get laid."  
  
Mikey nods. "He's right."  
  
"Oh my god, why is everyone suddenly so creepy?" Gerard unleashes a Mad Cow attack.  
  
-o-  
  
In Chicago, Bob invites them to come hang in his old neighborhood, meet his folks and some of his friends from high school. "Bob," Frank says, "I'm not sure if I'm ready to get that serious. I mean, meeting your parents… that's a big step, you know, in our relationship."  
  
Bob chases him around the parking lot of Walgreens, Frank dodging nimbly between cars; they've been taking bets on how soon Bob will actually try to kill Frankie and Mikey keeps a sharp eye on their chase. He's got twenty bucks on sometime in the next month.   
  
Ray says to Gerard, "You coming?"  
  
"You're…?"  
  
Ray shrugs. "Sure. Sounds pretty low-key. You should come."  
  
"Aw, no, man. I'm kinda in the middle of this thing." He's been drawing a lot lately, little sketches and cartoons spilling over the edges of paper onto the roof of his bunk. It helps… except that he sometimes feels like the superheroes and vampires watch him when he sleeps.  
  
Mikey, who's been listening in, says quickly, "Gee. Come on."  
  
Gerard shifts his weight back and forth. "Okay, fine."  
  
Bob's childhood home is in the suburbs, square single-story with a lawn in front, chain-link fence holding the dogs in the yard. When they bound out, Gerard uses Ray as a human shield. “Fuck you!” Ray yells as he disappears into a hurricane of slobber.  
  
Mrs. Bryar has a loud voice, and sounds like she's arguing even when she's saying hello. "Nice to meet you," she says, and Gerard wonders what he did wrong. Mr. Bryar isn't there, and Gerard wonders about him until Mrs. Bryar tells Bob, "Your father called yesterday," in a voice reserved for describing Nazi pedophiles.  
  
There are a ridiculous number of Bob pictures on the mantel: teenaged Bob at his prom peeking out from behind baby-Bob who grins in the mud. "It's weird," Gerard murmurs to Frankie. He knows so little about Bob, and here's all of him laid out in a visual diagram.  
  
"I know." Frank squints at 6-year-old Bob sticking his tongue into the open space of a missing tooth. "He's, like, smiling."  
  
"And kid-sized. I kind of thought that Bob must have jumped out of somebody's head, you know, like that god."  
  
"Goddess," Mikey says, right behind him. "Athena."  
  
"Would you stop following me everywhere?" Gerard says.  
  
Mikey scowls and turns on his heel. "I was kidding!" Gerard calls weakly after his brother's back as it disappears into the kitchen.  
  
Frank eyes him. "No, you weren't."  
  
Caught, Gerard shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. "He's been following me everywhere, all night. It's like – he doesn't trust me."  
  
Frank pauses, and looks after Mikey with a thoughtful look on his face. Gerard stares at him, his stomach dropping. "You don't either?"  
  
"I do, Gee." Frank steps to him, hooks an arm around his waist. "I was just thinking about the two of you. I mean, if Mikey's had that thought, then you probably have, too."  
  
Gerard swallows, ducks his head. Frank grabs the front of his T-shirt and shakes him roughly. "Knock it off. C'mon, let's get you laid."  
  
"Fuck, not you, too."  
  
Frank grins unapologetically and drags Gerard out into the backyard. Party lights dangle from the gutters; on closer inspection, though, they turn out to be Christmas decorations that haven’t been down. If Gerard cranes his neck, he can see a plastic Santa Clause stuck in the gutter. Somebody's got a keg going, the sight of red party cups all in a circle so painfully familiar that Gerard pauses for a moment. Nothing happens in his head, though, no overpowering Pavlovian response to chug chug chug.   
  
It's a sharp relief, and he wraps an arm around Frankie's waist. "It's cold, man."  
  
"No shit." Frank tugs his knit cap a little lower, dark hair falling into his eyes. "Halloween's coming up."  
  
"Yeah. You want a birthday movie marathon?"  
  
Frankie grins, bright and a little elvish. "Believe it, motherfucker."  
  
Bob's got a huge barbeque set up, sharp smell of smoke and the sizzle of meat. "Hey, Gerard, you made it."  
  
"It's the origins of Bob Bryar, couldn't pass that up. Holy shit, that's an obscene amount of beef."  
  
Ray wanders up in time to declare, "This cow died for our sins."  
  
"Her name was Elsie," Frank says, voice dropping into the tone of a funeral director. "She was a good mother."  
  
"It's made from steer, asshole," Bob interjects.  
  
"His name was Elsie. He was scorned by the other steer for his girly name."  
  
"And his lack of testicles," Gerard adds.  
  
"None of the steer have testicles," Ray says. "That's what makes them 'steer,' as opposed to 'bulls.'"  
  
"Why do you know these things?"  
  
Ray shrugs. "It's a strange, beautiful mystery."  
  
Mikey's sitting by a bush, slumped into a worn lawn chair and picking at the label of his beer. Detaching from the others, Gerard makes his way over as casually as possible, not something easy to do considering how far outside the party's natural sphere Mikey has placed himself. "Hey."  
  
In the dim light, Mikey's glasses reflect the house lights. "Hey," he says, in a flat voice that says Go away with perfect clarity.  
  
Gerard nudges his foot gently; when Mikey doesn't respond, he does it again, and again, and again, until Mikey sighs. "I was just worried, is all. What's wrong with being worried?"  
  
"It, um. It helps if I don't think about it too much, you know? If I just keep going, I'm okay. Like, I don't even know how long I've been sober."  
  
"413 days," Mikey says instantly.  
  
"Mikey."  
  
"What?" He folds his arms, beer hugged in close to himself like Gerard might snatch it away.  
  
Gerard stares at him a moment, then walks away, back to the party.  
  
-o-  
  
Touring ends with neither a bang nor a whimper – more like a cough: Gerard’s immune system all bent up about a stomach bug or something. "God," he groans. "I'm gonna sleep for, like, two months. Wake me up when it's time to do the next album."  
  
He and Frank sit on the empty baggage turnstile, their shit piled around their feet; they can afford to fly, now. Ray's in the corner on the phone to his folks; Mikey leans against the wall pouting about something. There are paper candy cane decorations on the windows that haven't been taken down yet and it's a new year.  
  
"I'm going to go outside," Frank says, "and kiss the sweet dirt of New Jersey."  
  
"You mean the toxic, germ-infested, biohazard waste of New Jersey. That probably has a layer of corpses buried six inches down."  
  
"Yeah, that."  
  
"Well, don't come crying to me if you get herpes. You staying with us tonight?" Ray's got his apartment, and Bob's back in Chicago with his family; for once Gerard is looking forward to being in his parents' house. It's stationary. He could use something stationary right now. "You can sleep on the couch."  
  
Frank laughs. "Thanks, man, but Jamia bought a place."  
  
"Oh, sweet."  
  
"Yeah, she's probably filled it up with girl stuff, though – gotta go claim my territory." He thumps a fist against his chest, then flinches a little and rubs the spot. Frank's never had a sense of self-protection, onstage or off; Gerard tries to not let it terrify him.  
  
“Yeah, well. You know where to find Mikey and me. I love parents, man. They're like, obligated to take me back in and stuff, no matter what shit I do.”  
  
Frank drops his chin into his hand and studies Gerard. "Um," Gerard says. "That's your Thinking Face."  
  
"So it is."  
  
"If it doesn't involve sex or lyrics…"  
  
"I'm thinking you're one of the strongest people I know."  
  
Gerard goggles. "Wh – seriously?" It's unexpected enough to make him giggle. "Frank, you do remember Japan, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I fucking remember Japan, idiot," Frank says. "We were on tour this whole fucking year since then, and you didn't slip. Not once. You coulda been doing blow off sweet groupie tits, and you didn't."  
  
"Yeah, well. You guys would have kicked me off the bus. Without slowing down."  
  
Frankie eyes flicker. "No, we wouldn't."  
  
"No?"  
  
"No. We'd give you a million chances, Gee. We always will."  
  
It's stupidly humbling, another hit of dizzy gratitude, and Gerard thinks, Oh shit. Please stop it.  
  
"Frankie!" Jamia stands in the open sliding doors.  
  
Frank's bags tip sideways as he jumps straight over them on his way to scoop her up into his arms. Gerard straightens his bag strap. "Mikes!" he calls without looking up. "You ready to go?"  
  
-o-  
  
His room's pretty much the way he left it, and Gerard stops right in the doorway. Everything he used to be is inside.  
  
He goes out and settles on the couch with a couple of spare comforters wrapped around him, switching on the TV for a good excuse. His dad's hairy, bare feet pad by. "Keep it down a bit, okay, rockstar?"  
  
Gerard grunts, switches it to mute. Dad goes down the hall; it's just Gerard and the television, and he doesn't take long to conk out.  
  
He wakes up sometime later to find a strange face looming over him, and yelps. "Sorry," Mikey says, his hair askew and looking like it might eat Gerard at any moment.  
  
"Jesus, Mikey. Give me a heart attack."  
  
"Sorry," he says again, and sits down beside Gerard's feet. "Why're you sleeping out here?"  
  
Gerard sits up. His mouth tastes horrible. "Closer to the god-box."  
  
Mikey smiles sideways, his dimples shadowed in the TV's flickering light. "Source of all knowledge and life."  
  
"We hear and obey."  
  
"Seriously, though."  
  
Gerard groans and draws his feet from behind Mikey, folds them up under himself. "Nothing. Just… didn't feel like sleeping in my room. Cold in there."  
  
"And it's weird, right," Mikey says, gently. "Being back here. Like we're kids again."  
  
It's too early in the morning and Gerard's half-awake. This feels very familiar. "Don't do that. I hate it when you do that."  
  
Mikey blinks, startled. "What?"  
  
Gerard tries to scramble up, and his legs get tangled; irrational panic spikes in his chest and he kicks free, accidentally nailing Mikey in the back. "Ow! Gee!"  
  
"Don't – you don't know, okay? I hate it when you pretend you know more about me than I do." He gets up and stands over his brother, arms folded. "You don't."  
  
Mikey stares up at him a moment, stricken, before his face closes off and his own anger rises. “Fine. Sorry.”  
  
He gets up and goes back to his own room. Gerard sits on the couch and watches the late night movie. There's a creak down the hall, and he knows at least one of his parents is up; but they've never gotten involved between him and Mikey, always just stood back and gave them space.  
  
Space to keep fucking up, over and over. He's back on the couch again, in the dark, and Gerard wonders if he's dropped into a wormhole and he's about to relive the same fucking year again.  
  
He thinks about calling Frankie and feels that deep, awful twinge in his stomach, the one that just won't go away.  
  
-o-  
  
Late winter in Jersey is depression dangled on a flagpole. There's no promise of life in the landscape, no buds of renewal hanging on branches: there is spring and summer and then about six months of lifelessness.  
  
Gerard's home for less than a month before he cuts bait and runs, flies all the way to LA – a little sunshine will do him some good, get rid of that bug that's still flickering around his body, making his head swim and his stomach do weird things.  
  
He buys out a hotel room for the week, five minutes from Manhattan Beach; it's a bit sketchy, but pleasantly nondescript. He tries not to remember Jamia's cousin's house up on Mt. Washington, where he did most of his detox. That had been nice: just him and Mikey and Jamia and Frankie.  
  
They all call to ask what's wrong. The only way he can keep about six different people from flying across country is to call each and every one of them once a day and tell them all how okay he is. He wishes he could figure out the "conference" option on his phone.  
  
Most days he spends inside, drawing the world beyond his window and even more hesitantly writing a few song bars. A couple of times he goes back to that church on Figueroa for the meetings; Lola isn't there anymore, and the place is a lot drabber than he recalled in that first surge of sober relief.  
  
It's been a year and a half. There's a more exact number, but he'd need a calendar, or Mikey, to work it out.  
  
Brian calls him at the end of the first week, stern voice of Moses. "What the fuck is going on, Gee?"  
  
What the hell: the man already know how bad he wanted to kill himself, this isn't that much worse. Gerard feels the way his head is still pounding, the weird flutter in his stomach, and says, "I think I'm in love with Frankie."  
  
A pause. "Jesus Christ."  
  
"I know, right?" Gerard rubs a hand over his face, picks at the sofa chair he's folded into. "Not even fucking drunk anymore."  
  
Brian rebounds quickly. "So, what, you think going into exile is going to fix that?"  
  
"I don't know! I don't fucking know how to fix it. Tell me what I'm supposed to do here, Brian."  
  
He spits it with a vengeance but Brian only sighs tinny and sad in New York. Gerard can practically see him resting his forehead in one hand; he bites his lip, his nail, and says, "I thought if I left for a while… y'know? Wasn't anywhere near him. Maybe it'll go away." Even saying it, though, he thinks about how Frank is his friend, his bandmate, they have all the same friends, all the same history.  
  
"Gerard," Brian tells him heavily, "problems rarely, if ever, just go away."  
  
The next album starts recording in two weeks. Gerard wants a drink.  
  
Instead, he starts writing.  
  
-o-  
  
When the guys, his guys, show up in LA, Gerard's there at the gate waiting for them, hair cut short and bleached blond. It's totally worth the looks on their faces. "Oh my god," Ray croaks, eyes big. Gerard thinks about all those months of Worms and hugs Ray tight.  
  
"You taking fashion advice from Eminem?" Bob asks. He gave up a solid career mixing sound for The Used to run around the world with this merry band of fuckups, saving all their asses just when they'd hit the skids. Gerard hugs Bob, too; he tenses up and kind of awkwardly man-pats Gerard on the back. "Um, hi."  
  
"You're happy," Frankie says. He stands past Bob in his beat-up jacket and stupid cabbie hat, hair long, un-dyed. Gerard feels a single pang, low in his belly, awful and thrilling.  
  
"I missed you guys," he says truthfully, and puts his arms high on Frank's shoulders, pats him on the back. "How've you been?"  
  
"Good," Frankie says, hooking his free arm around Gerard's ribcage. "How're you?" Gerard doesn't miss the faint inflection, the worry that Frank has always been so deft at expressing.  
  
"I'm good. I've been writing, man, I got a shitload of stuff." He steps back, wanting to include the others, and stops. "Where's Mikey?"  
  
"Think he's down in baggage," Bob says. "They said his carry-on was too big, made him check it."  
  
"Is the car outside?" Frank asks.  
  
"Yeah." Something in Frank's voice makes Gerard look at him.  
  
Frankie's eyes are dark, careful. "Cool. We'll hold it, you go get the Mikester."  
  
When Gerard finds Mikey, he sits on the turnstile's edge picking at his nails. "Mikey!" he calls, frowning. "What the fuck, man, we're all waiting on you."  
  
Mikey looks up and focuses on Gerard. Something strange and alien slips into his eyes and glares out at Gerard before slipping away again. "Hey," Mikey says.  
  
"We're waiting on you," Gerard says again, shaken.  
  
"I heard," Mikey says, but doesn't move. His voice is all pitched at one level, unsettling in its monotone. "Your hair looks good."  
  
"Thanks." Gerard wipes his palms on his jeans, reaches for Mikey's oversized bag. Mikey pulls the strap from Gerard's hand and heaves it up onto his own narrow shoulder.  
  
Gerard stares at his closed-off face, feeling sick all over his body, like he's got that flesh-eating virus-thing. "You're mad at me. I'm sorry. Why – you're mad at me."  
  
"I'm not mad," Mikey says in that same flat voice.  
  
"Yes, you are. I'm sorry. Mikey – "  
  
 Mikey walks away, out toward the curb.  
  
-o-  
  
The album's going to be fucking epic. Once they get settled in that creepy fucking mansion – Gerard's already been up there a week, alone with the night sounds that he is not scared of, fuck you very much – Toro and Bob immediately start fighting over the new pages, stealing them back and forth until Gerard snatches them all away and hand-copies every last one just to keep the peace.  
  
They immediately catch on to the feel of it, the snare drums and the driving beats. "Like a marching band," Bob is the first to say, and it catches at Gerard's brain, a set of dominoes blazing into new territory. It's all Rob can do to keep up, lugging new equipment into the studio until it looks like a high school band room. They're going to have to hire backup players.  
  
Epic, man.  
  
Frank moves along the outside, picking up whatever sounds Ray is laying down and playing with them. He and Ray make a small meeting place for themselves on the grand staircase: the acoustics there are amazing, an automatic reverb that echoes through the whole house. They sit side by side with their guitars, muttering and strumming. Gerard sits on the top step behind them, aching for the moments that they'll iron something out enough to give it a try, Ray bobbing his wild mane of hair and Frankie bowing his tattooed neck.  
  
Gerard tries to treat Frank like normal. He thinks he's successful… or maybe this will become the new thing that everyone pretends not to know about him. Nothing, though, not even his entirely inappropriate and unfortunate crush on the man, can stop him from relying on Frankie.  
  
Especially not with Mikey slinking around the edges of rooms, barely participating and not even attempting to hide his silent, inexplicable rage.  
  
"It's 'cause I came to LA, right?" he whispers one night. He and Frankie are on the staircase, Ray having ventured down into the kitchen (and braving the ghost that he swears up and down is in the foyer).  
  
Frank's got his guitar slung over his lap. He plays the tail end of a melody – Gerard kind of wants to make out with him just for that, because he's an amazing fucking guitarist and can smooth the weird metaphors and words in Gerard's head into something beautiful – and says, "I dunno, man. He was all right for a while. I mean, he was worried about you, but we all were. You kind of took off." He slants a quick look at Gerard.  
  
"Yeah. I – I'm sorry about that, I just. Needed some time to myself."  
  
Frank nods and hums to himself, plays another little bit of melody. "He got himself wound up about something, man. Your mom called me."  
  
"Mom called you?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
Gerard pops his knuckles one at a time, taps his worn fingertips on the step beside him. "I don't know what to do. I mean, I've tried, dude. He keeps, like… he won't talk to me."  
  
"Then he won't talk to anyone," Frank says simply.  
  
-o-  
  
Freaky noises in the night don't scare Gerard; Gran told him long ago about the ghosts in her family, how everybody comes back somehow. He wouldn't mind it at all if she swung by, even just to laugh at his hair.  
  
What does bring him up straight on the bed, clutching the sheets, is the loud creak and shifting shadows of his door opening. "Whaotcha?"  
  
"What?" Mikey whispers.  
  
"Mikey?"  
  
"Yeah. What'd you say?"  
  
"Dude, I could have just – what're you doing?"  
  
"Um." Mikey's shadow comes further into the room; it looks… bulgy. "Okay, don't laugh at me."  
  
There's the edge of breathy laughter around his own voice, though, and Gerard squints. "Is that… your comforter?"  
  
"Yeah. I need to sleep on your floor. My room is haunted."  
  
Gerard almost laughs, but catches himself in time. "Mikey, this whole place is haunted. The guys from Papa Roach said – "  
  
"Don't! Don't tell me, I really don't want to hear." Mikey sounds genuinely freaked out. "My room is like, the nexus of the house, I just know it."  
  
"Hey, hey." And now that Gerard's fully awake, he realizes that this might be his in. "Hold on, lemme just – " He bounces his way to the edge of the bed and strips his own comforter off the bottom of the bed; it's not that cold in the house, but Mikey's always had such crappy circulation. His feet get ice-cold.  
  
Gerard switches on a light so that he can spread his own comforter on the floor beside his bed. In the illumination, Mikey blinks owlishly then frowns. "I left my glasses behind."  
  
Gerard hesitates, catching the unspoken meaning. "You want me to go get them?"  
  
Mikey purses his lips. "Maybe tomorrow morning. When you can at least see the ghosts coming."  
  
Gerard does laugh then, but it's okay because Mikey grins and lies down on Gerard's makeshift bed with his own trailing comforter and pillow. It puts Gerard in mind of when they were kids, and he says, "Hey, you remember when you thought someone was going to break in and kidnap you?"  
  
"I knew you were going to say that. I only went in your room so that the kidnappers would take you first. You were bigger, and slower."  
  
Gerard leans over the side of the bed to swipe at him with a pillow. "Shut up, brat. You totally wanted me to protect you. Don't front."  
  
Mikey hums quietly, shifting around restlessly. He takes forever to settle sometimes, and Gerard listens to him rustling for a moment.  
  
Finally, he asks, "Hey. Mikey? Are you okay?" He peeks over the side of the bed again, chin propped on folded hands, and watches his brother's face in the shadows cast by lamplight.  
  
There's an actual moment, a pinpoint in time that Gerard could name if he was looking at a clock, when Mikey clicks away. Just shuts off. His face closes up and goes blank fast enough to shock Gerard, and he breathes slowly through his mouth as his heart jumps.  
  
"I'm fine," Mikey says, his voice a brittle whisper. "Turn off the light, Gee."  
  
He rolls away onto his hip, blankets pulled up to his chin. It takes Gerard a while to concede defeat, but he finally reaches out and switches the light off.  
  
-o-  
  
The next morning Mikey's gone from the floor, but the stone wall remains.  
  
Gerard's not sure what happened, what's changed, but everyone knows it has. It's like someone's touched a wire to the atmosphere between them, and the charge is just circling above, looking to strike. Mikey is short with everyone, but downright hostile to Gerard.  
  
They're going over the bass line, just the two of them in the studio. Mikey plays a different version from the one Gerard wrote, then practically spits, "Just looking to improve it."  
  
"Sure, if you want to sound completely different from the entire rest of the song." Gerard leans his head on his hand; he's seated on the floor at Mikey's feet, eyes on level with the guitar. "Why are you being such a brat?"  
  
Mikey's fingers move restlessly across the strings, drawing chords. "You listen to all the others," Mikey says, his voice a tight, weird sing-song. "You listen to everyone else, but not to me."  
  
Ray's in the corner of the room, head down over his own guitar. Gerard kind of wants to feel abandoned, but he remembers Frank saying He won't talk to anyone but you. "Because you never fucking say anything." He forces himself to meet his brother's strange, narrowed eyes. No one knows Mikey like he does, but the reverse is true as well; Mikey knows just how soft Gerard's underbelly is, where to hit in order to best slice his guts out. They've always had each other to trust with those sorts of secrets.  
  
Gerard doesn't trust this miserable, furious stranger, but he drops his voice anyway and says, "I'm listening, Mikey. I am."  
  
Mikey stares at him a moment, then snaps his attention away, strums the bass.  
  
The charge circles on and on over their heads.  
  
It can't stay there. Gerard waits until the others have gone to bed before going to Mikey's room with his heart thumping. He feels freaked out enough to knock, like they're fucking strangers. "Mikey?"  
  
There's no answer, but it's a significant silence, the quietness of somebody breathing and listening and being, so Gerard nudges the door open. Mikey sits on the edge of his bed with his bass in hand, but he's not playing. Just holding it with his head bowed. Like he's praying over the guitar. It's weird enough to rattle Gerard. "What're you, ignoring me now?"  
  
"What do you want?" Mikey's voice doesn't sound overtly hostile – just that same monotone he's had for two weeks.  
  
Gerard shuts the door and stands by it, his hands searching for pockets that his pajamas cannot produce. "So, um. I wanted to talk to you."  
  
Mikey makes a non-committal noise. Gerard shifts to put his hip against the wall, and says, "Can you stop it with this silent treatment? I know something's wrong."  
  
There's a pause, and then Mikey gives him this narrow-eyed look full of that weird thing from the airport. "You know, huh? You know."  
  
Gerard opens his mouth, closes it; Mikey sees. When he speaks again, it's with a nearly pitch-perfect imitation of Gerard's voice. "You don't know anything. Stop pretending that you do, because you don't."  
  
Gerard swallows down a snap and pushes away from the wall, edging further into the room. "Well, could you fucking tell me?"  
  
"Why?" Mikey asks without looking up. "What good would it do?"  
  
"Maybe I could fucking help, asshole," Gerard says before he can stop himself.  
  
"That'd be great. How about this? Get out of my room, okay? Go have a beer or something."  
  
Gerard's mouth pops open, temporarily without ammunition. Before he can reload, Mikey's already raking a hand back through his hair hard, face screwed up tight. "Oh, God, I didn't mean that. Gee, I'm sorry, I'm being a jerk." He gets up, guitar neck clutched awkwardly in one hand. "I don't know why I'm acting like this, it's like, nerves or something. I'm just, I'm nervous about a lot of things, and it's all just – but I'll handle it, alright, I'll stop. I swear."  
  
His voice is reedy and grates on Gerard's ears. "Okay," he says. "What – um, what are you nervous about?"  
  
Mikey laughs, weirdly high-pitched. "The album, idiot. The fucking album, that one we're sitting around trying to put together all day and all night. Fucking everyone asks, every interview – doesn't that scare you?" His fingers on the guitar neck are jagged with tension, and Gerard wouldn't be surprised to hear wood crack.  
  
"Um. Yeah."  
  
Mikey reels away. "Right. Right. I'm fucking nervous, is what I am." He pauses, and then says quieter. "I'm just fucking nervous."  
  
He's facing away from Gerard, putting the guitar away or something, but the tension in his shoulders, in his whole fucking body, it's electric. "Mikey," Gerard says, "you were nervous before your first day of high school. You crawled all over me and cried and I had to talk you into coming out of the bathroom." Christ, he still remembers lying down on his stomach in the dusty hallway to speak underneath the door, inventing all kinds of lies about how high school was fun and he'd make new friends and wasn't he excited? "That was nerves, Mikey."  
  
The hand goes back in the hair and stays there. Mikey stands by his bed, and says in a voice that's strung tight as his guitar, "I'm really tired, Gee. Can you just leave me alone? Please? I need to sleep. I can't deal with your – " He waves his other hand vaguely without looking at Gerard.  
  
If he stays very still and breathes slowly, nothing bad will happen. "Okay. If you want to?" Mikey looks like he's four years old, face pinched up into unhappiness. "Can we – can we talk again tomorrow?"  
  
"Yeah," Mikey says softly. "Can you – I really need to sleep, Gee." He giggles at the end of it, sounding slightly hysterical.  
  
And Gerard, who knows his brother but has no experience at all in this territory, says. "Yeah. Um. Good night," and slowly backs out the door.  
  
-o-  
  
The next day, Mikey isn't in the house. It's huge and he could be wandering anywhere, as he's always been prone to doing, ever since he was little and he would head out for hours, strolling back in with a popsicle or a bag of cotton candy that some stranger had given him.  
  
But Gerard is his brother and he knows within minutes that Mikey is gone. He loses his head after that: while Frank's getting Rob on the phone and Ray asks if and when they should call the police and Bob starts putting on his hiking boots, Gerard runs straight out of the house barefoot, in his pajamas, without a cell phone or anything resembling a coherent idea of where he's going.  
  
The sun's out, bright April morning, but the ground underneath his feet is still cold and damp. The front driveway's made of gravel and he winces his way across the sharp rocks, swinging his arms wildly. "Mikey!" he yells when he gets near the end of the driveway. "Shit shit shit. Mikey!"  
  
There's no response and he sprints the last few steps across the gravel yelping in agony. Smooth pavement is a wash of relief against the soles of his feet, and Gerard runs down the long, winding road until he's wheezing. He slows to a walk for a few seconds, then breaks into another run. Walk. Run. Walk. Run. The cracked pavement stretches out in front of him, winding through the hills; Gerard mentally writes the obit: 'My Chemical Romance singer, 28, found dead of heart attack in the Godforsaken wilderness; body left for wolves.' God, he needs to quit smoking.  
  
Then he turns a corner and there's Mikey's elbow and Mikey's arm and the rest of Mikey, and every additional inch makes him more certain that Mikey is not lying in the road, but is in fact sitting on the side in the dirt, head down and shoulders slumped.  
  
In the last few steps, Gerard's legs go shaky underneath him and he kind of weaves over to collapse beside Mikey. "You fucker," he gasps up at the sky. "If I die of a heart attack… I'm blaming you. From beyond the grave." He runs out of breath.  
  
Mikey says nothing and it crumples Gerard up, too much silence for him to bear. "You're an asshole," he says, pressure building between his eyes. "Mikey. Mikey." He finds his brother's foot with his fingertips, punches it weakly. "Please talk to me."  
  
"Sorry," Mikey says.  
  
Gerard rolls up onto his side and crawls through the dirt to grab at Mikey's shirt, gripping him. His neck's at a painful angle, head squished against Mikey's hip.  
  
They sit there a while before Gerard gathers the strength to sit up and wipe the tears off his cheeks. "Where were you going?" he asks, blinking at the road. It's miles back to civilization.  
  
"Nowhere." Mikey shrugs, a little flicker of movement in his curved body. "Just wanted to go for a walk."  
  
Sitting next to him, Gerard can feel his little brother's misery beamed like a heat wave straight into his own chest; it crushes words straight out him, but it’s not like he’d know the right ones to say anyways. He leans over to push his shoulder against Mikey's.  
  
Mikey doesn't move away. "I think there's something wrong with me," he whispers. "I think I need help, Gee."  
  
His hair's in his eyes, around his glasses, and Gerard brushes it back. "Okay. Okay. Whatever it is, we can fix it."  
  
"No, I mean – " Mikey pulls in a breath and straightens, a bit irritable but more like himself than he has in weeks. "I don't think this is something you and me can fix on our own."  
  
"What, you mean like a psychiatrist?" His brain's already working: Brian will know somebody, or Stacy. Rob, at the least. "Yeah. We can find somebody, easy-peasy. Right? We can do this." He rubs Mikey's back, feels the knobs of his spine. "What?"  
  
Mikey's mouth looks tight. He stares at the other side of the road and says slowly, "Gee. I need to get away from you for a while."  
  
It cuts Gerard, quick knife in his chest and he gasps around the hurt. Mikey grabs his hand. "Not like that. Gee. It's not your fault. But… Gee, I've felt like this for so long, and I didn't say anything because you had your stuff to deal with. I need to get away from that so I can deal with my stuff." It's his turn to push Gerard's hair back, grip him tight. "Just for a little while."  
  
There's a whine in Gerard's ears, but he swallows hard, nods. "Okay. You could stay with Stacy. I'm sorry, Mikey."  
  
"It's not your fault," Mikey says again, but there's something in his voice and he won't meet Gerard's eyes. Gerard waits, feeling like maybe he should brace himself. Finally, Mikey murmurs, "You went away."  
  
"I – that wasn't about you. I have a crush on Frankie."  
  
Mikey rolls his eyes; even tear-streaked and having some kind of nervous breakdown on the side of a fucking mountain, he manages to communicate how big an idiot Gerard is with nothing but a look. "Not then. Before that."  
  
It takes Gerard a second to put together and then he sighs, "Aw, Mikey," and tips his head against his brother's.  
  
"I totally thought you were gonna die," Mikey says. It's so quiet around them, just birds and Nature and shit. "I thought you were gonna drown in puke or something. I didn't know what to do."  
  
Gerard remembers that night in Missouri when Brian had talked him down from the ledge, and wants nothing better than to go back and kick his own drug-addled ass. Instead, he says, "I didn't either."  
  
Mikey nods and wipes at his nose, sniffs. "It still isn't your fault."  
  
Maybe not – Gerard's going to have to work at convincing himself otherwise – but, "That's part of it, right?"  
  
Mikey nods again and sighs. It's a good sound, a sound of release, and it has the same effect on Gerard. He hugs Mikey's shoulders and rocks them both; a rock digs into his ass, but he's not going to stop for anything short of an apocalypse.  
  
Finally, after the sun's a hot burn on Gerard's shoulders and his ass has gone numb, Mikey straightens and peels his glasses off to wipe his eyes. "Fuck. I'm so fucked up."  
  
"Shut up. You're not. You call this fucked up?" Gerard holds out his sleeve and Mikey wipes his cheeks on it. "This is nothing, man, there's videotape of me puking on Youtube."  
  
Mikey pulls a face and puts his glasses along, then folds his skinny legs up underneath himself and scrambles awkwardly to his feet. "I'm so hungry."  
  
"You could have waited until after breakfast to do this." Gerard sticks his arms up. "Help me up."  
  
Mikey rolls his eyes again, but grips Gerard's wrists and drags him upright; he even lets Gerard keep one of his hands, twining their fingers together.  
  
-o-  
  
In his panic to find Mikey, Gerard hadn't noticed how far he'd run, and it was all downhill, too, a steady incline. After about fifty feet he has to put both his hands on his knees, pushing his legs to keep them moving. "Oh fuck this. You had… to do this on a fucking… mountain."  
  
Mikey's reply gets lost in his own heavy breathing, but Gerard recognizes the tone well enough to guess. Gerard weaves enough to knock their shoulders together; Mikey bounces away and then veers back, knocking into Gerard, who giggles. Then he lunges out and drags Mikey to the side of the road when the dull rumble of a car engine reaches his ears.  
  
Frank's car wheels around the side of the hill ahead, moving a little too fast on the mountain road; the moment they’re in sight, the brake lights come on and it slows to a putter then a crawl. Beside him, Gerard feels Mikey tense, and instinctively reaches out to grab his hand.  
  
The car drifts to a halt beside them; Ray pumps the window down. "Hey."  
  
"Hey."  
  
"Um." Ray glances back and forth between the two of them. Frankie's right at his back, leaning across from the driver's seat, and Bob looks through the backseat window. "What're you guys doing?"  
  
Gerard glances quickly at Mikey. "We're, uh. Reenacting The Sound of Music. I'm the Baron, and Mikey's the nun. You guys can be Nazis if you want."  
  
Mikey laughs. "God, you're lame."  
  
"Fuck you." Gerard opens the back door and jerks his chin at Bob, who slides over to give them space.  
  
"You guys okay?" Bob asks, eyeing them as they climb in.  
  
"Uh." Gerard leans across Mikey to pull the door shut, then sits back and takes his brother's hand again. "Not at the moment, but we're gonna be. We need to call Brian or Stacy up and, uh, ask if they know a psychiatrist."  
  
There's a brief pause and Mikey flinches, pulls his hand away; Gerard thinks Oh fuck fuck, before Bob says, "I know a good one. This dude, I used to see him a lot when I was in town."  
  
Gerard hunts down his brother's hand again and grips it; both their palms are sweaty. "Seriously?"  
  
"Hell, yeah." Bob's eyes are big, solemn. "I mean, maybe he's not what – you guys are looking for, he works mostly with anger management stuff. But he's good. Shit, man, without him I woulda killed Frank months ago."  
  
Frank blurts a startled laugh; he and Ray have both twisted around from the front seat to face back and it suddenly feels like they're back in the tour van, squished together and breathing each other's space. Gerard feels Mikey's hand relax a bit and barrels on. "I don't – think anger management's the problem."  
  
"Stacy would know someone in town," Ray says, nodding. "You want me to call her?"  
  
"Naw, man," Gerard says. "I'll do it. Frank, we gotta drive back to the house before Mikey gets hungry enough to go zombie on our asses."  
  
Frank laughs again, still edged with plenty of uncertainty. He twists around, though, and cranks the car into gear. "Fuck, man, it's too narrow for me to turn around."  
  
"So drive down until you find someplace wider," Bob says.  
  
"Shut up, backseat driver." Frank thinks a second, then switches gears and turns in his seat. "Fuck this, I'm going backwards."  
  
"The fuck you are!"  
  
"Silence, Bob! Be Silent Bob! Ray, you look out that way and tell me if you see anyone coming from that direction."  
  
"Oh, Jesus," Ray says.  
  
"This is why I have anger management issues!" Bob yells.  
  
Frank giggles and steps on the gas. They lurch backwards.  
  
Mikey whispers in Gerard's ear, "The band My Chemical Romance plunged to their deaths yesterday."  
  
Gerard laughs and hugs Mikey's head to his shoulder, kissing his dirty hair.  
  
-o-  
  
Gerard rides along in the cab to Stacy's house out in Malibu. She meets them at the front door, her square hips and shoulders an unexpectedly wonderful sight. "Hi, Mikey. Hi, Gerard. Have you guys eaten?"  
  
Mikey had, wolfing down breakfast like a condemned man; Gerard's stomach had been too messed up for him to try. "We're good."  
  
"Okay. Come on in."  
  
Stacy's house looks like an actual fucking home with pictures on the walls and places to hang dish towels. It makes Gerard feel better about leaving Mikey here, until they get back to the guest room and Mikey puts his bag down on the floor next to the bed.  
  
It's a nice bed. "That's a nice bed," he tells Mikey.  
  
"Don't start crying," Mikey says. "Please don't start crying, Gee."  
  
"I'm trying," Gerard says. He sucks in a breath and lets it out shakily. "You'll let me know, right? When you want to see me again."  
  
"Don't make me feel guilty about this!" Mikey shouts suddenly, his voice hoarse. He's pale, his eyes bugging.  
  
Gerard stares at him. "I'm not trying to, Mikey," he murmurs.  
  
Mikey deflates just as quickly, mood shifting too fast to be healthy, and how did Gerard not see this before? He wonders how long it's been, how long Mikey has kept this to himself, as he watches his brother shrink into himself. "I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be." They stand the same way, Gerard realizes: arms folded across their chests, defensive. It makes him sad and he moves forward, rests his forehead against Mikey's shoulder. It's kind of awkward, but Mikey sighs and leans back against him.  
  
"You'll call me, right?" Gerard asks, trying to keep the plea out of his voice.  
  
"'Course," Mikey says into his hair.  
  
He'll take what he can get: Gerard kisses his brother's shoulder through his shirt, messes up his hair, and walks out.  
  
Stacy, wise woman that she is, catches him at the door and makes him stand with her a few minutes, rubbing the small of his back in a way that pushes all the tears right out of him.  
  
"I'm a shitty person," he whispers to her, clinging to her arm. He has to be, if it took Mikey nearly having a breakdown for him to notice anything. If getting away from him is the only thing that's going to make Mikey better.  
  
"No you're not, baby."  
  
"I am. I – God, I was so wrapped up in my own shit, this whole fucking year…" He thinks about Mikey, trying to hold things together while he was falling apart, and sobs.  
  
"Baby," she says sternly, "your shit included kicking drugs and alcohol, and not killing yourself. That's a lot for a soul."  
  
"But I'm not any better. I still want to drink – shit, please don't tell anyone this."  
  
She sighs, taps out a cigarette with one hand. "I won't. But all those people you don't want to know, they got their own troubles, too. Bob just a ball a' nerves, Ray's a shut-in, and Frankie, he's got big problems with that girl a' his."  
  
"He does?" Gerard asks, and immediately hates his own guts with the power of an entire galaxy.  
  
"You bet. We all got our burdens to bear, Gerard, and they stay a long, long time." She lights the cigarette and passes it over to him with a ring of dark, plum-colored lipstick around the butt. "Go home. Play some music. Write some songs. I'll take care of Mikey and when he's ready, he'll come back to you."  
  
Gerard sucks in a lungful of smoke, pushes it back out. "What if he doesn't?" he whispers, staring at his shoes.  
  
Stacy laughs quietly, runs a hand over his hair. "Honey, he's your brother. He loves you more than anybody."  
  
So Gerard stubs the cigarette out on the ground and gets in the cab. He rides it back to the Paramour House alone, numbly watching the streets go by and switch between suburbs to slums to posh boutiques full of false nose jobs.  
  
There's no eureka moment, no sense of peace. They've got another couple of weeks to work on the album and Gerard wants a drink.  
  
When he gets back, Ray's in the kitchen with all the makings of a sandwich laid out. "Hey. How'd it go?"  
  
"Okay." Gerard sits down on one of the stools, feeling hollowed-out in more ways than one. "Make me one?" He puts on what he hopes is a hopeful face.  
  
Ray sighs, but gets out another couple pieces of bread. "Man, we need to get a band-maid or something."  
  
"Why? We've got you." Gerard watches Ray lay out the ingredients carefully, all ordered and neat; he thinks, suddenly, about what Stacy said and gets up to walk around the counter. "Hey. Are you okay?"  
  
Ray pauses and looks at him quizzically, white bread balanced in one hand and a mustard-covered knife in the other. "Am I okay?"  
  
"Yeah. Are you okay?"  
  
Ray considers it, and shrugs. "Not all the time. I am right now."  
  
Gerard smiles and stands up on his toes. He kisses the tip of Ray's nose. "Good."  
  
"Is that Gerard?" Frankie's voice calls. His feet thump distantly on the stairs.  
  
"Yeah," Ray calls back, bemused, "and he totally just kissed my nose."  
  
There's a pause, and then Bob shouts even more distantly, "It's a cute nose."  
  
Somewhere closer, Frankie laughs his stupid, high laugh. Ray chuckles, too.  
  
"Oh, fuck you guys," Gerard says, and steals Ray's sandwich.


End file.
